


Unlovable

by LittleSixx



Series: Together [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Coda, Friendship, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Pre-Slash, Pre-Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Tony Has Issues, Tony Has Trust Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4172865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSixx/pseuds/LittleSixx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Romanoff shared a room--goodness only knows what they'll get up to. Thor left to do demigod-only-knows what. That leaves Steve and Tony with one of the kids' rooms. Tony Stark had never shared a bed, but he wouldn't deprive Captain America of one, either. An "On the Farm" "Age of Ultron" Easter egg.</p><p>(Or: another Stony heart-to-heart because Barton refers to them as "Mom" and "Dad.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlovable

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my "I really hated AOU's characterization so this is my headcanon" drabbles. Prepare for lots of banter, dialogue-heavy prose, and terrible Cap puns. Comments and critiques are always appreciated.

Before Afghanistan, Tony Stark had never been without a bed. After age fourteen, he never had a problem finding someone to share it with. Bruce and Romanoff were sharing a room--goodness only knew what they'd get up to. Thor left to do demigod-only-knows what. Barton said, “Well, looks like Mom and Dad will be taking Callum’s room.”

It took Tony awhile to realize whom he meant. When he stood inside the doorframe of Barton’s son’s room, Captain America at his side, Tony realized he’d have to take the floor.

Weirdly, he was alright with that.

It was strange. Tony had never been in a typical child’s room. His always had some sort of experiment ongoing and clothes never piled up because Jarvis was always there to clean. The pale blue walls were probably one of Barton’s first projects in the house. The closet was neat at the top where only Callum’s parents could reach, but the bottom was nothing more than a pile of clothes—probably both dirty and clean.

It was a small room, with nothing more than a bed, dresser, and some toys. They were scattered in all corners of the room, but the real highlight was the large window on the eastern wall overlooking the farm’s massive yard.

“You take the bed,” Steve said, swiping a pillow and throwing it at the foot of the wall opposite the window.

“You’re joking, right?” Tony asked. “You know no one will let me live it down if I let Captain America sleep on the floor.”

“You planning on telling people you slept with Captain America?” Steve joked.

“I’d tell them I slept with Steve Rogers, and I’d never let him take the floor.”

“Look at the bed. It’d barely get to my knees.”

“I’ll tell them I slept with Steve Rogers, and I’d never let him take the floor alone.” Tony grabbed the other pillow and threw it down next to Steve’s. They stood, looking at their pillows for a moment, before Tony spotted something in a corner.

“Are those Legos?”

“Waffles?” Steve asked.

“That’s Eggos, Cap. No ‘L.’”

“What’s a Lego?”

“These!” Tony said, his face shining with child-like joy. Steve frowned slightly at the building blocks.

“Okay.”

Tony sat cross-legged on the floor.

“While you may be ready for bed, Capplesauce, I have a need … Nothing here is broken, so I can’t fix anything. So I’ll just … build something. Don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”

“Whatever you say, snookums,” Steve quipped in reply.

“Shut up.”

“Tony.”

“Yeah?” He asked, beginning to sort the blocks into piles of red, yellow, and black.

“Never mind.”

“Okay.”

“’Night.”

“No, no, you know what? Not okay,” Tony said. He couldn’t quite look Steve in the eyes, but continued. “I want to know why you faked it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Steve said, suspiciously coy.

“You know what I mean.”

“Nope.”

“Cap, there are twenty-thousand differences between you and me, the biggest being that with you things are black and white. They’re right or they’re wrong. You can lift it or you can’t.”

“So you noticed?”

“I’m a genius, you idiot. Everyone noticed. Either you’re worthy or you aren’t.” Tony began forming the foundation of his project with red blocks.

“I didn’t think it was a question you all needed answered.” Steve shrugged innocently, his eyes closed, and Tony couldn’t help but notice how that was the most peaceful he’d ever seen Cap.

“So you faked it?”

“You make it sound so dishonest, Stark.”

“Oh, it’s Stark, now, is it?”

“Yes, I can lift the hammer.”

“So why’d you lie about it?”

“I didn’t lie!” Steve’s eyes popped open and Tony made the mistake of looking up from the toys. Steve’s eyes were impossibly blue and froze everything. What was the question? His tongue was solid ice on the roof of his mouth and the blood in him went cold. Brain freeze. Heart stop. Fingers still. Eyes open.

Thank God Steve went on.

“You all trust me now. I don’t want you to think because I can lift Mjolnir that every decision I make is a good one. I am fallible, but I have good intent. That intent makes me worthy. My intent is to keep my team and the world safe from harm. It’s the only thing that matters to me, Tony, and that’s why I can lift it.”

Tony finally pried his tongue free.

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah,” Tony sighed. He went back to building, and he presumed Steve went to sleep. He hummed “Dirty Deeds” to himself for a bit, then every other 80s tune he could think of until his Lego creation was nearly finished.

“I don’t think everything is black-and-white,” The voice stunned Tony and he yelped, dropping his project.

“Hmph,” He began reattaching a few pieces that had fallen off.

“Maybe I did before I went into the ice. But how can I think that way now? Am I alive? Technically. Did I die? Technically.” Cap sighed. “All I know for sure is this team. That’s why when you and Banner go behind my back, behind the team, and create something with potential for unprecedented destruction … It’s wrong to me.”

“I just wanted—“

“I don’t give a damn what you wanted, Tony!” Steve said, suddenly irate. “How can you accuse me of narrow-mindedness when you did what you did? You see things as ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe.’ You need to make things safer, I accept what is.”

“And that’s unacceptable to me.”             

“There you go again!”

“No, this was not what I wanted, Captain,” Tony said, suddenly tempted to get to his feet, cross the room and … and … He refused to let that scenario play out in his head because he’d had that vision before and it lead to hate sex. He was internally compelled to keep that version, not what may actually unfold. Cap may very well punch him in the face, so he fiddled with the Lego blocks in his hands until Cap spoke again.

“How can anything be black-and-white when Bucky …”

There it was. “When Bucky …”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Fantastic,” Steve laid his head on the pillow again. 

“No, wait!”

“What, now, Stark?”

“I think I can lift it.”

“What?”

“Mjolnir. I can lift it.”

“Sure.”

“No, no, hear me out. Thor puts the hammer down in the Quinjet. I’m flying the Quinjet. QED, I can lift it.”

“I think the floor of the Quinjet takes the place of Earth. So, you’re not lifting it so much as lifting the floor.”

“Way to be a crabCapple.”

“Now an elevator …” Steve trailed off, teasingly.

“Yes!”

“If the elevator lifts it …”

“The elevator’s worthy. What if I built the elevator?”

“You’re worthy-ish,” Cap conceded.

“I’ll take it.”

Take it, Tony did. He liked Steve more than he should. Maybe it was the caricature of himself—his prosthesis, more like—he held in his hands, but Cap worked with Iron Man. Steve, on the other hand, didn’t really enjoy Tony’s company.

“Why don’t you like me?” The words weren’t meant to come out of his mouth, but they found their way anyhow.

“Hmm?”

“Why don’t you like me?” Tony repeated.

“I like you just fine,” Steve replied unconvincingly.

“I’m asking a serious question.”

“I don’t like it when you talk so much and I’m trying to sleep.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Steve. I know you’re not sleeping, not when Ultron’s out there threatening innocent lives.”

“Tony, I like you fine.”

“No, you don’t.” Tony waited for what seemed like ages before Steve sighed.

“You don’t like me. I think you respect me now but you don’t like me. It’s off-putting. You criticize Fury for using the Tesseract as a nuclear deterrent, while you were creating Ultron for the same purpose.”

“That’s different.”

“No, it isn’t. You don’t see what you do in any light except the one that makes it most swallowable to you.” Tony definitely didn’t blush at the word ‘swallowable.’ “It’s a defense mechanism, and I don’t care, really, why you have it. All I know is that it’s destructive, sometimes to you, and sometimes to others.”

“That’s my life in a nutshell,” Tony quipped. “If I’m not killing myself, I’m destroying someone else.”

“That’s not what I—“

“You knew my dad, you can imagine.”

“I really can’t.”

“That so? Well, he was cold, calculating, and I was a perpetual disappointment. I remember one time when I was really little we got into an argument. I’d done something. Something exploded, probably, but I was seven or so and he started yelling at me. Didn’t hit me that time, but said I was ‘unlovable.’ I don’t know why he said it, but that’s what he said and he said it over and over again. That time, and a few times after that, enough for me to start believing it, you know?

“So I did. One of my many therapists suggested it was why I started fucking people when I was fourteen. The imitation of love because it’s something I never had. So I drowned myself is sex and liquor because nobody gave a fuck, right? Then Howard died and Jarvis wasn’t there anymore, so no one could really keep me in line, I guess. And I tried so hard to get someone to love me. So, so hard. I thought Obi was alright, and he tried to have me killed. And it’s just, over and over and I keep getting fucked over.”

“Pepper seems to love you,” Steve said, more alert then.

“She seems to, doesn’t she? But she really just likes me. She likes my snark and is impressed by my brain, and I’m around her all the time and she loves convenience. She tries to love me, I think, but it’s just not the kind of thing … I’ve gotten her into such trouble and she’ll forgive me and trust me but I don’t think that what she feels is love, really. We work together so we should WORK TOGETHER, right? As a couple.

“Then, of course, there’s Rhodey. He’s known me forever and has a protective streak a mile long. Kind of loves me in a way … But were it to come down to me or the Constitution, there’s no question where his loyalty lies.

“So I’m in my forties and no one’s ever been able to love me. I thought maybe if I were to start protecting people, I’d find someone who could? The more people I protect, the more likely I am to find that person. It’s just this cycle of me thinking that I’ll be able to love myself.

“I’m done with the psychobabble now. Sorry,” Tony apologized too quickly.

“That’s interesting.”

“It really isn’t,” Tony said, putting the final blocks on his project. He put the Lego version of the Iron Man Mark II mask on the bed in place of the pillows before plopping down on his own next to Steve.

“That’s the sort of thing you tell teammates, Tony. It’s trust.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

A short pause.

“I’m sorry Howard wasn’t better to you.”

“You don’t need to talk about him. I don’t like talking about him. So if you could just not, now, that’d be fantastic.”

“This is the first conversation we’ve had that wasn’t forced. You realize that? Maybe we should sleep together more often.”

“I’ll call Christine Everhart and let her know Captain America wants to sleep with Iron Man. _Vanity Fair_ will go crazy. We’d probably make the cover.”

“Oh, a photoshoot! You know how those thrill me,” Steve deadpanned. Tony broke out in hysterical laughter and Steve punched him in the arm.

“Sorry, sorry, Cap. Oh, God. We do fight like an old married couple.” Tony laughed louder, Steve laughed a bit, and they rested their heads on the wall for awhile.

“How mad would you be if I started calling you ‘Honey’ over comms?”

“Perfectly acceptable, SugarCap.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Great, old-timer. So …”

“Doesn’t change that I think you’re wrong. And that whatever you try to create to protect us from what’s out there is only going to cause trouble.”

“And I think you’re a government lackey willing to accept what is and perpetually be playing defense.”

“You wound me, honey.”

“Forgive me, Steve?” Tony winked playfully and Steve pointed his chin toward the window. Tony definitely did not scan his jawline.

“The sun’s coming up.”

And so it did.

There wasn’t a horizon, really. It was all trees and a thin yellow band skimming their tops. They sat in silence as the yellow grew and was replaced by orange, as the clouds turned pink. Bands of colour alternating, changing, and shifting until the sun finally peeked overtop the trees, light bouncing off the green yard below.

“They say everyone creates the thing they fear. Maybe that’s what I did,” Tony admitted. “I created destruction. Steve, you’re a god-fearing man.” No reply. “If he created it, does God fear the sunrise?”

Steve smiled a bit at that.

“I don’t think it’s the sunrise God fears. My gram used to say he’s afraid we, humans, you know, wouldn’t love him.” Steve looked at Tony, then. Their noses maybe two inches apart … Normally he’d be repelled because Steve’s eyes were so, soul-piercingly blue. Steve’s jaw loosened a bit, which Tony definitely didn’t notice.

“Yeah, and … ?” He managed to say. Real classy, Tony. Really upped your game on that one. He smiled kindly which Tony definitely—aw, fuck, Tony knew it. Something weird happened to Steve’s eyes just then, and he said,

“God is always afraid we won’t love him, so every morning he sends us a reminder.”

Tony chuckled because the last time he prayed, he was literally in another dimension.

Pain gripped his chest then, and he slammed his head against the wall. A sharp intake of breath that burned his nostrils. His eyes forced themselves shut and tears forced themselves out and his breath came in stutters. His body convulsed and he wound himself into a fetal position, head between his legs.

Tony sensed none of this.

 

_His chest was about to cave in._

_He was falling …_

_It was dark …_

_So cold …_

_Frozen …_

_Then it was loud._

_So loud._

_Tony’s eyes opened and there he was._

_Captain America, hovering over him. The lines of concern etched across his cowl-less features._

_Memory Lane was rarely that kind. Panic attacks didn’t include waking up to Cap’s face._

_There was no sound. The streets of New York City were lifeless, but Tony was not._

_He laughed._

_Shawarma?_

 

The sounds of farm life were loud.

So loud.

Tony’s eyes opened and there he was.

Steve Rogers, hovering over him, the lines of concerned etched across his features.

Life was rarely that kind. Panic attacks didn’t include waking up to Steve’s face.

There was no sound. The mini-Barton’s room was lifeless, but Tony was not.

He laughed.

You are my reminder.

 

He’d never say it aloud, of course.

So he laid his head back and smiled to himself, knowing Steve would always be there to wake him up.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you missed it, there's a subtext in here about creationism and the problem it creates for Tony. It's not even subtext. My original title for this piece was "Playing God." He creates things to protect, only to have them destroy things he loves. His actions have destructive consequences. So every morning Tony wakes up as an Avenger, that's his reminder that, in his own way, he is loved by his teammates. Not at all "Unlovable." This is his family now, and as family they'll stop the thing he created to protect them, hopefully discontinuing the cycle of destruction. He creates an early version of the IM mask out of Legos because he has a child-like imagination but adult potential for destruction. *sighs deeply* The metaphor got deeper as I wrote so ... 
> 
> Again, comments and critiques are welcome. They're so, unbelievably helpful.


End file.
